Monthly Archives: March 2017

Posted on

Agricultural Sustainability

BASF Experts in Grade 10

In science, Grade 10 have been working on a sustainability project in class.  They have been asked to look at a chemical industry company and to do some research about how their chosen company is taking responsibility for being sustainable and what measures they have in place.  On Monday 27th March, Grade 10 had a visit from Mr Beadle and Mr Sen, Agricultural scientists from the Agricultural division at BASF who came to talk to the class about BASF’s Agricultural sustainability goals.There was a lot of good discussion that went on in class and the students asked several questions relating to BASF as a company as well as it’s sustainability goals.

We thank Mr Sen & Mr Beadle for taking their time to come and speak to the class and look forward to possibility of more visits in the future.

text: SAB

Posted on

Street Arts Festival

As part of the Environment Week H.I.S. launched its inaugural Street Arts Festival. Musicians, jugglers, painters and balloon artists entertained the H.I.S. community on the playground, which was bathed in sunshine.It was exciting to see, hear and feel the relaxed atmosphere of the festival, which created a platform for all our young risk-taking performers to show their talents to an audience. If you were part of the audience: Thank you for encouraging the students and for donating money. If you were a performer: Congratulations and thank you for making our first Street Arts Festival a successful event.All artists put out hats or instrument cases in true street art spirit to collect donations.While street artists were busy performing, the Earth Mandala slowly took shape on the Gym roof. Here is a little insight on how this was approached: 

“We start with a clementine. The clementine holds the string that draws the circle.

From the center of the circle we express with color how we cherish our Earth. 

We paint our world and pledge our commitment and action. 

Dozens of PYP, MYP and DP students gathered on the gym roof on Tuesday afternoon. Colorful pastels and chalks helped create our 3rd Annual Mandala to raise environmental awareness for the whole community.
We were truly thankful for the beautiful weather and the wonderful energy given by our artists. It was a wonderful event while music was played by the baskers on campus. My personal thank you to parents, students, faculty and staff who have supported the efforts this year.” (Lance Fortner)

With the money collected H.I.S. is going to support a rainforest project in Brazil organised by APREMAVI. The organisation works together with BUND. Representatives of APREMAVI who visited the Street Arts Festival were very impressed and thankful for our effort to support their project. Money donated to APREMAVI goes towards the reforestation of the atlantic rainforest in Brazil. For more information please look at this website: http://www.bund-heidelberg.de/aktivitaeten/partnerschaften/apremavi_brasilien/Many thanks to all artists who raised 171,64 euros in just one hour! We are still collecting donations until Monday, 3rd April (collection box in school foyer).

 

photos: Louis (Grade 7), SH, LF, AS text: LF, AS

Posted on

Spring Clean – Heidelberger Frühjahrsputz

The H.I.S. Spring Clean event, organised by students from Grade 11 left our school and surrounding areas spotless today.

All students and staff had been divided into groups, which then cleaned designated areas. The youngest students stayed on school grounds and cleaned the playground.

Many thanks to the Grade 11 students for organising and supporting the Spring Clean 2017.

Thank you to all participants for their enthusiasm and teamwork.

text & photos: AS

Posted on

Usborne Book Fair

Last week parent volunteer Erin ran an Usborne book fair to benefit our school. Students and parents kept our volunteers hopping all week, with a whopping total of 389 books sold! Erin donated her entire commission to the school as well, so with her commission and the free books from the book fair (60% of the sales come back to us in free books) we were able to add 298 new books to the library and classrooms (a value of €1881)! Every teacher’s classroom wish list was completely filled (either by parents purchasing titles for them or from our book fair benefits) and the library gained about 75 titles! The enormous amount of work and time Erin put in on behalf of our school is GREATLY appreciated! Many thanks also to the parents who came and purchased books (especially if you purchased from the teachers’ wish lists) and especially to the parents who volunteered to help out at the book fair. We are grateful for our involved, committed parents!

text: PC, photos: AS

Posted on

Dressing Up For Book Week

Like the students some H.I.S. staff members dressed up for the book character competition, which started off our Book Week this year. “Alice in Wonderland” was the theme chosen for staff. A fabulous group effort was the result: Which characters from Alice in Wonderland can you find?!

photo & text: AS

Posted on

Entertaining And Informative

Visiting Author Mark Robson

Our students thoroughly enjoyed meeting Mark Robson, author of several book series for young adults and one series for younger readers. The author visited during Book Week and kept his audiences on the edge of their seats (and, in two of the programs, jumping up OUT of their seats!)Mr. Robson, a former RAF pilot, spoke with the PYP students about the discipline of Taekwondo, which he teaches in England. He taught the students about discipline and respect (having them bow to their teachers and practice specific movements while he counted.) His series for this age (Warrior Kids) deals with self-discipline and bullying.   For the upper grades, Mr. Robson talked about the enormous amounts of research he has done to write his novels. “I haven’t been a 19-year-old girl spy,” he said, “so I had to learn what she would know before I could write about her!”As a special treat, the winners from our Book Character Dress-Up Day and our Library All-Stars ate lunch with our visiting author (a lovely meal was provided by parents thanks to the efforts of parent volunteer Lynnette.) We had so many wonderful costumes that we had to split lunch into two groups.So many of our students purchased Mr. Robson’s books that he ran out, leaving only enough to show the students at his next school a sample. In addition, many of our families have ordered his books online, requesting that we ask Mr. Robson for signed bookplates for them to add to their books. Please contact Mrs. Clower in the library if you also need a signed bookplate.

Special thanks to the parents who brought lunch items and to the PTG for their huge financial contribution supporting this author visit.

photos & text PC

Posted on

Celebrating H.I.S. Book Week

Feeling Book-ish? Our students celebrated Book Week (20-24 March) in many ways! Here are just a few!

The MYP students fought a hard battle in Mr. Ledbetter’s signature Book Quiz on Wednesday. After five rounds, our winners were (photo) Disha, Nici, Abbigail, Taylor, Leo, Fin, and Anton. Congratulations to the victors!Another special event replicated our World Read-Aloud Day event: Grade 6 once again teamed up with Early Primary to do some reading.

This time, they were in the library, and not only did we share fun books together, but Grade 6 students helped the EP students practice library skills.

As we know, every book in the library has a home, and its address is shown on its spine label. A book placed on the wrong shelf is a sad book, because it is lost and away from its home.

That’s why we use shelf markers when we look for books! The EP students each got a chance to practice using a shelf marker with Grade 6 students supervising and helping sing the Shelf Marker Song.In another fun event, the Grade Two students turned the library classroom into a talk-show studio, complete with audience members from Early Primary. Each Grade Two student presented a book they’ve enjoyed and were interviewed by Mrs. Mingay. The students told interesting information about their books, explaining the tools the author used (rhyme, repetition, question marks, exclamation points, etc.) and telling why the book is recommended.

The highlight was when each student read an excerpt from the book! What great oral readers! They read with such enjoyment and expression!

Many other exciting things happened during Book Week; watch this spot for more about our love of reading!

text & photos PC

Posted on

Math Is Everywhere

  Over the past two days, Grade 5 have explored where circles are present throughout our environment.  We produced drawings of our findings.  We also studied the mathematical significance of Pi.  They considered how Pi influences our world and our thinking as we measured volume of paper prisms with sand.  The students had many hands-on opportunities to explore how Math is all around us and interacted with Math in a new dynamic way.

Mrs. Stampe worked with Grade 4 students on a math story mystery called The Ghastly Deed. The characters included numbers 1, 5, 7, 9, 13, and 4/6. Students tried to figure out which number had stolen number 13’s cakes. 2/3s had been spotted stealing the cake, but he was nowhere to be found. From the character’s list, students had to discuss who was the thief using their knowledge of the equivalent fractions. Can you figure out who it was?During music lesson, finding the connection between music and math, Jenna ask ”when can we use the numbers of the music figures?’’ and we were doing a math/music race, remembering the music figures and their values, trying to solve the additions on each worksheet.

text: FW, photos Grade 4&5